Born in Toowoomba, Douglas Annand attended evening classes at Brisbane’s Central Technical College while working as a commercial artist. From 1928, he was employed in the Brisbane office of advertising agency Samson Clark & Co. Ltd and was transferred to the company’s Sydney premises in 1930 before being retrenched. He worked briefly for Allied Advertising Artists and then freelanced. In the mid-1930s, Annand’s designs for The Home and Art in Australia earned him renown, and he forged an international reputation through projects such as the Australian Pavilion at the 1939 New York World Fair, designed with architect John Oldham.

During World War Two, Annand served with the camouflage unit of the Royal Australian Air Force stationed in North Queensland. While employed to design camouflage for aircraft bases, information booklets and insignia, he also took the opportunity to paint. With little free time, Annand found that watercolour enabled him to rapidly capture the region’s tropical landscapes. His lyrical Thursday Island pub 1943 is remarkably free of references to the war and likely offered the artist a respite from his official duties.